THE NEW YORKER ..-.... . .........., ... '" :.t:. ) :@o" "* \ {l '\ " ':: .1 \ " ! t .t f :..:- \ '; 1 f " ;r.' . . . . . .. 'Y '" .., .A "'" ) .it í 1 ./ ,. À;.I >-., ,-...:......... '>( -?"",": '" k< .:" . <' + "Pop, can I have the tractor tontght ') . at low tide All told, it's twenty-two miles long and averages half a mile across. The northernmost coral-island group, it's to be found five hundred and eigh ty miles east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, if you can find it at all. In 1638, a French ship was wrecked on the reefs off Bermuda because the ship's charts made no mention of the island, and seventeen years later a British man- of-war that had been dispatched to Ber- muda searched for it in vain for three weeks. On his return to England, the captain reported irritably that there was no such place. Bermuda may have been visited first by an Irish monk named Saint Brendan, in the sixth century. Bermuda may also have been visited by Amerigo VespuccI, in 1493. Juan de Bermúdez certainly sighted It at some time prior to 1511, and a party of Frenchmen was ship- wrecked there in 1593. They built an eighteen-ton bark of cedar wood, calked it with turtle oil and lime, and escaped to Nova Scotia. Some escape. BermudIans don't consider that the island was properly dIscovered until 1609, when Sir George Somers was shipwrecked on the reefs in the Sea Ven- ture' the flagship of an expedition sent . out by the Virginia Company to settle Virginia. The group of islands has two officIal names: The Bermudas, after old Juan, and Somers Islands, after old George. Shakespeare is thought to have had Bermuda in mind when, in "The Tempest," he spoke of "the still-vex'd Bermoothes." Spelling was never his strong point. Bermuda has been continuously in- habited since 1609 Its chief industries have been, successively, raising tobacco, gathering salt, shipbuilding, privateer- ing, raising onions and lily bulbs, and accommodating tourists. The once flourishing onion business was lost to Texas back around 1900. The lily-bulb business, which continues to flourish, was started by a retired Civi] War gen- eral named Hastings-the American Civil War, that is. Tourists provide eighty-five per cent of Bermuda's in- come, and Bermuda is extremely nIce to tourists. Ninety-nine point seventy- eight per cent of all tourists in Bermuda are honeymooners, or act like honey- mooners. Iceland, England, and Ber- muda, in that order, have the three old- est parliaments in the world. To stand for Parliament in Bermuda, a man must own land worth at least two hundred ... ^ 4 iþ-' : to ,,-. 'f"-" i \ I.. it - \ - t fØ --- F' '., .." , ., ,,<>',. .. -..þ . '. t:-c;.,N' ," ...<... -,:!, " and forty pounds. Only people owning land valued at sixty pounds or more are entitled to vote. This limits the vote to about ten per cent of the population which totals thirty-eight thousand and is one-third white and the rest colored. There is no Income tax in Bermuda, and no inheritance tax. Government revenue is derived wholly from import duties and a small tax on land. Bermuda is extremely nice to rich people. Hamilton, the only real city on the island, was named for General Henry Hamilton, who was governor in 1793, when the town was incorporated. St. George, the oldest settlement, has an ancient church whose interior was built mostly of cedar and smells delicious. Only two thousand of Bermuda's fourteen thousand-odd acres may be owned by aliens at anyone time. The First Families of Bermuda are more or less affectionately known as the Forty Thieves, because so many island for- tunes were founded on privateering, blockade-running in the Civil War, and similar activities. The First Families are active in trade, selling lots of tweeds, perfume, leather goods, and gin. Tennis was introduced into the United States by a member of a Bermuda First Family